The SNP’s luxury motorhome seized by police was never insured, the Sunday Mail can reveal. The £110,000 Niesmann+Bischoff campervan sat outside the home of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law for the last two years.
Sources close to the investigation into SNP finances said the swanky motorhome, which we revealed last week had been bought from a dealer in Stafford, near Birmingham, had never been insured.
One said: “It raises questions about the SNP’s story that it was for campaigning. If that was the case, surely, it would have been insured in case the party wanted to use it.”
Party insiders previously claimed that the motorhome was supposed to function as a campaign battle bus in the run up to the 2021 Holyrood election as the country was in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.
But as the restrictions were gradually eased, plans for the van were then ditched and for two years remained in the driveway of ex-SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell’s mother.
It was seized from the Dunfermline property on April 5 – the same day Murrell, who has been married to Sturgeon for 13 years, was arrested and the house he shares with the ex-First Minister Nicolas Sturgeon was raided by police.
The police probe, dubbed Operation Branchform, is also examining more than 1000 transactions on Amazon, the purchase of fancy cookware and expensive pens and officers have been hunting for unregistered sim cards.
A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “The campervan story – flimsy as it was – continues to unravel for the SNP. The public deserve answers about what exactly this party thought they were up to.”
An SNP spokesman said: “These issues are subject to a live police investigation. The SNP have been cooperating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so, however, it is not appropriate to publicly address these issues during this time.”
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